The Spectacular Sci-Fi Visions of East German Director Gottfried Kolditz 03/08/25

We love the handful of fantastic Soviet-bloc space pictures from the Yuri Gagarin era; this exacting disc release gives us two East German space operas from the 1970s, heavily influenced by Kubrick’s 2001 and TV’s Star Trek. Polite cosmonauts investigate a missing spaceflight in Signals: A Space Adventure, a visual effects showcase filmed in 70mm. And intrepid space diplomats respond to a distress signal in In the Dust of the Stars and land on the very odd planet of TEM 4, in the midst of some suspicious politics. The disc set comes with authoritative essays and extras assembled by the DEFA Film Library of Amherst, Massachusetts. On Blu-ray from Deaf Crocodile.
03/08/25